The US military and intelligence communities have spent much of the last two decades fighting wars in which the US significantly over-matched its opponents technologically—on the battlefield and off. In addition to its massive pure military advantage, the US also had more sophisticated electronic warfare and cyber capabilities than its adversaries. But those advantages haven't always translated into dominance over the enemy. And the US military is facing a future in which American forces in the field will face adversaries that can go toe to toe with the US in the electromagnetic domain—with disastrous physical results.

That's in part why the Army Cyber Command recently experimented with putting "cyber soldiers" in the field as part of an exercise at the Army's National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. In addition to fielding troops to provide defensive and offensive cyber capabilities for units coming into NTC for training, the Army has also been arming its opposition force (the trainers) with cyber capabilities to demonstrate their impact.

That impact was demonstrated clearly in May, when an armored unit staging a simulated assault at NTC was stopped dead in its tracks by jamming of communications. As the unit's commanders attempted to figure out what was wrong, a simulated artillery barrage essentially took the unit out of action.

Cybering up

Cyber attacks damaged Iran's nuclear research facilities by using Stuxnet. By some accounts, cyber attacks have also interfered in North Korea's missile testing with mixed results. But the Defense Department's declared cyber war against the Islamic State (ISIS, or Daesh) has had disappointing results. The "cyber-bombs" former Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter said were being dropped on ISIS forces have had little effect on their battlefield effectiveness or their ability to communicate and recruit over the Internet. Network attacks against ISIS' communications infrastructure don't do much, simply because that infrastructure is ad-hoc and distributed—and can easily be replaced and re-established when disrupted.

Meanwhile, the ongoing conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated that Russia has been developing electronic warfare and cyber warfare capabilities for the battlefield, integrating them directly into every combat unit. As a recent report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace noted, the US military and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies are facing a present—not a future—in which they have to assume that they will face "offensive [electronic warfare] capabilities preventing acceptably free use of the radio spectrum," and "forms of electronic and cyber attack, including exploitation of personal data harvested from any connected device brought into an operational area."

That's turning out to be a problem, as a flag-level officer observed at NATO's Maritime Commanders Meeting in 2015. The officer, who was not identified because he was speaking under the Chatham House Rule, said that the military was dealing with the effects of "a generation that has lost the skills of maneuver warfare in contested domains—land, air, sea, and cyber."

The US Army has been promoting the idea of a "cyber warrior" since at least 2011. That's when Vincent Viola—the founder of the US Military Academy's Combating Terrorism Center and, more recently, one of President Donald Trump's candidates for Army Secretary—urged the Army to create a Cyber Warfare Ranger school to create the kinds of troops needed for a "cyber battalion."

That "cyber battalion" is the 781st Military Intelligence Battalion, based at Fort Meade. Formerly called the Army Network Warfare Battalion, the 781st has provided cyber support teams for other Army units, and it has provided the capabilities tested at the NTC. Army Cyber Command is now looking at how to formalize the integration of cyber support teams from the 781st into combat units for both training and deployment.

The US is sharing its lessons with other NATO members. Last October, the Army and units from several NATO countries tested new equipment and tactics during Bold Quest, a training exercise at Fort Stewart, Georgia. That led to a longer collaboration with the Dutch Defense Cyber Command—which is looking at how cyber support can be added to Dutch Special Operations Force units.

Sean Gallagher
Sean is Ars Technica's IT and National Security Editor. A former Navy officer, systems administrator, and network systems integrator with 20 years of IT journalism experience, he lives and works in Baltimore, Maryland. Emailsean.gallagher@arstechnica.com//Twitter@thepacketrat

Cyber in the hacking-into-something and cyber as equipping-with-electronics are not the same thing.They are used interchangeably in this article, and it's confusing, and silly.

Since the author seems to cyber enjoy it (as in the cyber cyber cyber comment) - I suggest cyber for hacking and cyborg for electronics- with the hopes it will satisfy both the readers and the author. Surely cyborgs are more cyber than cyber

Cyber in the hacking-into-something and cyber as equipping-with-electronics are not the same thing.They are used interchangeably in this article, and it's confusing, and silly.

Since the author seems to cyber enjoy it (as in the cyber cyber cyber comment) - I suggest cyber for hacking and cyborg for electronics- with the hopes it will satisfy both the readers and the author. Surely cyborgs are more cyber than cyber

The DOD uses cyber as a blanket term for what they call "cyber effects"- messing with the networks, be they wired or wireless. Cyber is not hacking. Cyber is information warfare. As much as I loathe the word "cyber" (drinking every time I say it), cyber is the word attached to government use of electrons and it's not going away.

Cyber in the hacking-into-something and cyber as equipping-with-electronics are not the same thing.They are used interchangeably in this article, and it's confusing, and silly.

Since the author seems to cyber enjoy it (as in the cyber cyber cyber comment) - I suggest cyber for hacking and cyborg for electronics- with the hopes it will satisfy both the readers and the author. Surely cyborgs are more cyber than cyber

The DOD uses cyber as a blanket term for what they call "cyber effects"- messing with the networks, be they wired or wireless. Cyber is not hacking. Cyber is information warfare. As much as I loathe the word "cyber" (drinking every time I say it), cyber is the word attached to government use of electrons and it's not going away.

I'm just glad the term "information superhighway" disappeared. There are worse things the government could have settled on.

I love how the US military invents a new term for what is merely an advanced version of something previously done well: electronic warfare

Yep.

So, electromagnetic spectrum domain operations is just too much word salad, and Congress has a vague idea what cyber is , so they just go with cyber. The Air Force made their networking related ratings into "cyber operations " ratings. It's marketing.

I love how the US military invents a new term for what is merely an advanced version of something previously done well: electronic warfare

Yep.

So, electromagnetic spectrum domain operations is just too much word salad, and Congress has a vague idea what cyber is , so they just go with cyber. The Air Force made their networking related ratings into "cyber operations " ratings. It's marketing.

I love how the US military invents a new term for what is merely an advanced version of something previously done well: electronic warfare

Yep.

So, electromagnetic spectrum domain operations is just too much word salad, and Congress has a vague idea what cyber is , so they just go with cyber. The Air Force made their networking related ratings into "cyber operations " ratings. It's marketing.

I love how the US military invents a new term for what is merely an advanced version of something previously done well: electronic warfare

Yep.

So, electromagnetic spectrum domain operations is just too much word salad, and Congress has a vague idea what cyber is , so they just go with cyber. The Air Force made their networking related ratings into "cyber operations " ratings. It's marketing.

"Indian Air Force has started the investigation into the crashing of one of its Sukhoi 30 fighters on the Assam-Arunachal Pradesh border....Concerns are raised that the aircraft’s flying was “interfered with from outside” while it was still airborne and that this may have led to the pilots suffering “spatial disorientation”."

How many fly/drive/aim by wire systems do we have? What happens when those systems are compromised?

If there is anything that we learned from Snowden it is that the Tinfoil Hat Brigade is sometimes right.

If you don't have any microprocessors, there's nothing for an EMP to fry!

Incorrect. EMP can cause local sparking in sensitive gear trains and thus friction and inaccuracy which could, for instance, affect a mechanical fire control system. Fortunately many of them are metal cased.A big enough EMP can weld shut mechanical switches.

Unfortunately, bureaucracy is a potent enemy of technological innovation and excellence. Doesn't get much more bureaucratic than the US armed forces. I think we often overcome the problem by spending vast amounts of money on weapons systems, but maybe it's harder with electronic warfare.

Cyber in the hacking-into-something and cyber as equipping-with-electronics are not the same thing.They are used interchangeably in this article, and it's confusing, and silly.

Since the author seems to cyber enjoy it (as in the cyber cyber cyber comment) - I suggest cyber for hacking and cyborg for electronics- with the hopes it will satisfy both the readers and the author. Surely cyborgs are more cyber than cyber

He uses it in the same context the Army does. There is no information security, it's "cybersecurity." There is no "Annual Computer User training," it's the "Annual Cyber Awareness Challenge" (yes that is exactly what they call the annual training that tells you not to download music on your government computer or share your passwords). Fort Gordon went from the "Signal Center of Excellence" to the "Cyber Center of Excellence" even though there is only 1 MOS that is "cyber" there (and nearly a dozen signal MOS schools there) and only half their "cyber" training occurs on that base.

Maybe bring back flags? Then when the enemy jams the visible light spectrum, we can look into communicating via other frequencies, like, umm, radio?

I feel a loop coming...

All sarcasm aside, I think we're looking at a future where whoever is most able to operate with very limited communication between units is going to fare the best.

You are not far wrong; in the past of sailing ships they would try not only to get the wind gauge but also to be positioned so the sun and/or mist made the enemy more visible and them less so. That was one of the things that made mathematical and scientific ability so vital for the successful command of wooden warships, navigation being the other. Jamming the visible spectrum, in effect, was what it was about. Then came radar and the Battle of Taranto and everything changed.

Maybe bring back flags? Then when the enemy jams the visible light spectrum, we can look into communicating via other frequencies, like, umm, radio?

I feel a loop coming...

All sarcasm aside, I think we're looking at a future where whoever is most able to operate with very limited communication between units is going to fare the best.

Then the US Army will be set up for success. They operate in chaos on a daily basis.

"Oh no, we drove all the way to the range but forgot the magazines and staplers. Oh well, we'll prop the targets up against the wood and fire one round at a time!" Yes, that happened. We shot over 4000 rds in a day at the range without magazines...and without securing the paper targets to the wooden target-holders.

I love how the US military invents a new term for what is merely an advanced version of something previously done well: electronic warfare

Yep.

So, electromagnetic spectrum domain operations is just too much word salad, and Congress has a vague idea what cyber is , so they just go with cyber. The Air Force made their networking related ratings into "cyber operations " ratings. It's marketing.

I really wonder how effective an offensive electronic warfare unit will be. The article points out that ISIS' communication is difficult to knock out, because of course networking technology was designed to be resistant to nuclear warfare.

So, what exactly is the difference between an oldschool EW specialist and this new Cyber specialist? The paint? Because it sounds like the paint.

In other news, re-formalizing the combat decker role is probably a good idea if our vs-EW weakness has gotten to where a basic comm jamming (which is relatively EASY to perform I might add) can let someone leisurely call the thunder on a group of tanks.

Cyber in the hacking-into-something and cyber as equipping-with-electronics are not the same thing.They are used interchangeably in this article, and it's confusing, and silly.

Since the author seems to cyber enjoy it (as in the cyber cyber cyber comment) - I suggest cyber for hacking and cyborg for electronics- with the hopes it will satisfy both the readers and the author. Surely cyborgs are more cyber than cyber

The DOD uses cyber as a blanket term for what they call "cyber effects"- messing with the networks, be they wired or wireless. Cyber is not hacking. Cyber is information warfare. As much as I loathe the word "cyber" (drinking every time I say it), cyber is the word attached to government use of electrons and it's not going away.

Well, in that case:So in the marklar of the marklar's incoherent and misleasing use of the marklar marklar, you choose to propagate the marklar rather than help marklar understand what it is the marklar is trying to tell marklar.

Cyber in the hacking-into-something and cyber as equipping-with-electronics are not the same thing.They are used interchangeably in this article, and it's confusing, and silly.

Since the author seems to cyber enjoy it (as in the cyber cyber cyber comment) - I suggest cyber for hacking and cyborg for electronics- with the hopes it will satisfy both the readers and the author. Surely cyborgs are more cyber than cyber

The DOD uses cyber as a blanket term for what they call "cyber effects"- messing with the networks, be they wired or wireless. Cyber is not hacking. Cyber is information warfare. As much as I loathe the word "cyber" (drinking every time I say it), cyber is the word attached to government use of electrons and it's not going away.

So - based on the comments up to the quoted one as well as the content of the article - you shouldn't be driving until next month, and may want to be on the lookout for liver damage?

Seriously, that was a lot of cyber, there. The article was good, and Cyber is apparently official nomenclature...but still. Just a bit excessive.